MI grandma pleads no contest to killing, dismembering teen

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton has announced a Flint woman pled no contest in the 1998 cold case death of her granddaughter.

Leyton said Lois Arlene Janish, 75, is charged with second-degree murder related to the 1998 disappearance of her granddaughter, 14-year-old Coral Hall.

A detective said Janish admitted to beating her teenage granddaughter to death with a hammer, then dismembering and scattering the remains 15 years ago. She says she and her now-dead boyfriend dismembered her.

According to the police investigations, Janish had made several statements to the whereabouts of Hall, and on at least one occasion, admitted to killing her with a hammer.

According to the cold case investigation led by Detective Sergeant Gregory Hosmer of the Flint Police Department, Hall was last seen or heard from on Sept. 22, 1998.

Authorities said on that date, Hall had allegedly called a friend asking if she could stay at the friend's home. The friend told police that the two were to meet at a pre-arranged location but that Hall never showed up.

Another childhood friend of Hall's made a similar statement that Hall had called her also around that time to say she had been fighting with her grandmother and wanted to come over to stay at that friend's house. That second friend also said Hall never arrived.

Other friends of Hall told investigators that around that same time, Hall was never seen again by any of them.

Leyton said Hall had been living with her grandmother and her grandmother's boyfriend on Ann Arbor Street in Flint at the time of her disappearance. The boyfriend has since died. Hall's body has never been found and nobody has reported seeing or hearing from Hall since September 22, 1998.

The charge of second-degree murder carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. She will be sentenced on Nov. 3.